Today, the International Monetary Fund asked G20 leaders to back a doubling of its emergency financing capacity to strengthen its response to the rapidly spreading coronavirus pandemic that is set to cause a global recession in 2020.

In a statement, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said that the depth of the economic contraction and the speed of the recovery depended on containment of pandemic and “how strong and coordinated our monetary and fiscal policy actions are”, adding that it was paramount to support emerging markets and developing economies, which were particularly hard hit by the crisis, sudden economic stops, capital flight and, for some, sharp drops in commodity prices.